Issue importance and performance voting

Issue importance mediates the impact of public policy issues on electoral decisions (Krosnick, 1988, 1990). Individuals who consider that an issue is important are more likely to rely on their attitudes toward that issue when evaluating candidates and deciding whom to vote for. The logic behind the link between issue importance and issue voting should translate to a link between issue importance and performance voting. Incumbent performance evaluations regarding an issue should have a stronger impact on the vote choice of individuals who find that issue important. The analysis demonstrates that there is a significant interaction between performance evaluations and issue importance. People concerned about an issue assign more weight to their evaluations of the government on that issue when making up their mind. Issue importance is a significant mediator of issue voting (Krosnick 1988, 1990). The impact of various policy attitudes on candidate appraisal and vote choice is stronger among those individuals who feel that the issue in question is important. Although this interaction has large implications for our estimates of issue voting and our understanding of voting behavior, it has received little attention since the publication of Krosnick’s studies. Rarely is issue importance integrated into models of political decision